Page:Two Introductory Lectures on the Science of International Law.djvu/18

cedently to that event, to invoke the authority of canonists equally as of the old Roman jurisconsults; and whilst the entire brotherhood of European princes acknowledged one and the same spiritual chief, his authority was binding upon their consciences, and his interference on critical occasions was as necesary as it was acceptable. The prerogative, however, of the Holy See in such matters had been strained too far. Catholic divines had impugned it in theory; Protestant princes were not likely to respect it in practice. Accordingly, we find that Queen Elizabeth of England, when Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, remonstrated against the expedition of Francis Drake, replied that she did not understand why either her subjects, or those of any other European prince, should be debarred from traffic in the Indies; that as she did not acknowledge the Spaniards to have any title by donation of the Bishop of Rome, so she knew no right they had to any places other than those they were in actual possession of.—(Camden’s Annals, anno 1580.)

The chain which links together the casuistic theology of the Schoolmen with the particular jurisprudence that relates to the intercourse of nations, would not have been complete without the work of Suarez of Granada, one of the greatest men in the department of ethical science, whom the Society of Loyola has produced. Having discussed the principles of natural law and of positive jurisprudence in a very systematic manner, and with an acuteness which led Grotius to pronounce him to be so subtle a philosopher and theologian as almost to be without an equal, “tantae subtilitatis philosophum et theologum, ut vix quemquam habeat parem,” Suarez proceeds to discuss those larger principles of jurisprudence which connect that science with general morals, and espe-